The data life cycle (lifecycle) is the sequence of stages that a particular unit of data goes through from its initial generation or capture to its eventual archival and/or deletion at the end of its useful life.
The cycle has several stages. Depending on who you listen to, it can have 4, 5, 6, 7 or 8 stages.
- Data creation.
- Data processing and storage.
- Data usage.
- Data archiving.
- Data destruction.
- Data creation.
- Data Storage.
- Data usage.
- Data Sharing
- Data archiving.
- Data destruction.
- Data Generation
- Data Collection
- Data Processing
- Data Storage
- Data Management
- Data Analysis
- Data Visualization
- Data Interpretation
The data engineering lifecycle is a subset of the full data lifecycle. The full data lifecycle encompasses data across the entire lifespan, the data engineering lifecycle only focuses on the stages that the data engineer controls.